The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for separating a jumbled collection of articles into a plurality of separate and discrete articles.
The invention has particular application to the separation of a collection of garment or clothing hangers in a recycling installation for used hangers. In such an installation the hangers are to be separated prior to being sorted into groups or categories according to the particular hanger style or type. The invention is herein described in this exemplary context. It is to be appreciated however that the method and apparatus of the invention are not limited to this particular application but are suitable for use in separating a variety of different articles.
For many years clothes hangers used in the retail clothing industry have largely been disposable. That is, the hangers have been used to hang clothing either in storage or on display, and when the clothing is removed from the hanger, such as after sale, the hanger is no longer required and is disposed of as rubbish. This is particularly so where clothing is supplied by a wholesaler to the retail outlet on hangers, which is generally the case at least for larger department stores, as the retailer has no need for the hanger once the garment hung thereon has been sold. The hangers are simply collected by the retailer and disposed of as general rubbish. Despite the obvious waste, it is nevertheless a nuisance for either the retailer or the wholesaler to sort the hangers for reuse, particularly when the one retailer might have garments supplied on a wide variety of different hangers. Furthermore, significant transport costs may be incurred in returning the hangers to each wholesaler.
For the above reasons, hangers for retail use have typically been very low cost items, being mainly plastic moulded and of a relatively flimsy nature. Because of their construction, such hangers can bend and buckle if they are used to support weighty garments and in general, these do not reflect positively on the quality of the retail outlet, particularly when the garments are of an expensive nature. Retailers would typically prefer to use better quality hangers. However, rather than maintain their own inventory of quality hangers and themselves invest significant time and labour to separately hang thousands of garments, large retailers will (as already noted) usually require the wholesaler/manufacturer to supply garments with hangers. Cost considerations result in the wholesaler/manufacturer supplying the garments with low quality, disposable hangers.
Disposal of clothing hangers for the foregoing reasons is understandably regarded as wasteful, costly and detrimental to the environment. With increasing effort being made to reduce wastage in industry generally, the disposal of significant numbers of hangers does not reflect well on the retail clothing industry. There is therefore considerable motivation to recycle clothing hangers if this could be done in a cost effective manner. However, recycling of hangers is known to be a cumbersome task, because the hangers need to be sorted into groups of the same kind or style, and if the hangers to be recycled are provided for sorting in a jumbled state, then many of the hangers will be tangled together. The most common entanglement is where the hooks are tangled, which is known as the hangers being xe2x80x9ccrossedxe2x80x9d.
There is therefore a need for a simplified operation to decross or separate hangers from a supply of hangers to be sorted and to remove groups of hangers that cannot be decrossed. Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a method and an apparatus for that purpose.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided an apparatus for separating a jumbled collection of articles into a plurality of separate and discrete articles, including:
conveyor means adapted to transport a plurality of the articles in succession along a process path;
separation means adapted to permit the articles to proceed along the process path one at a time;
sensing means adapted to detect when an article is entangled or interconnected with one or more other article; and
removal means adapted to remove any such entangled or interconnected articles from the process path.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention the separation means includes barrier means adapted to intermittently restrain and release passage of successive individual articles along the conveyor means process path. Preferably, the barrier means includes a pair of gate members spaced apart along the process path, each of said gate members being moveable between an open and a closed position. A downstream one of said gate members is adapted to restrain an immediately adjacent upstream article and successive following articles from proceeding along the process path when in the closed position. An upstream one of the gate members is adapted to isolate said upstream article immediately adjacent the closed downstream gate member from the other articles when in the closed position, such that the downstream gate member can be opened to release said isolated article. Furthermore, the pair of gate members are spaced apart along the process path a distance sufficient to permit only a single article to fit therebetween, and the upstream gate member is adapted to be opened after the downstream gate member is closed.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention the sensing means is adapted to detect the passage of released articles along the process path beyond the barrier means. Furthermore, the sensor means is adapted to interpret a delay in the passage of a released article along the process path as indicating entanglement of that article with an adjacent following article.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention the removal means includes a bridging device interconnecting two sections of the conveyor means, the bridging device able to be moved to create an opening or gap between the sections of the conveyor means to allow entangled articles to drop out of the process path. Preferably the sensing means is adapted to identify said delayed article and said following article for removal from the process path, the sensing means further adapted to actuate the removal means to remove the identified articles.
Typically, the articles to be separated are clothing or garment hangers and the conveyor means is preferably adapted to engage with a hook of each of the hangers to transport a plurality of the hangers in succession along the process path. Desirably, therefore, the conveyor means includes a screw conveyor upstream of the separation means, with the screw conveyor configured to allow a single hanger hook to fit between adjacent thread portions of the conveyor screw to facilitate arrangement of the hangers in succession.
In at least one exemplary embodiment, therefore, the present invention provides a hanger separating facility that separates a hanger from one end of a line of hangers and releases that hanger for conveyance by conveying means to a hanger sorting facility, while retaining the remaining hangers from release from the hanger line. Conveyance of the separated hanger is retarded if it is crossed with another hanger remaining in the line of hangers and sensing means is provided to sense that retardation and to cause the separating facility to release a predetermined number of hangers from the line of hangers immediately adjacent the retarded hanger, for removal of those hangers prior to the sorting facility.
The apparatus of the invention advantageously removes crossed hangers from the line of hangers, so that those hangers can be sent to be decrossed, and so that the remaining hangers can proceed directly to the sorting facility. Decrossing of the crossed hangers can be by any suitable method or means and the decrossed hangers can be returned to the apparatus of the invention for conveyance to the sorting facility, or they can be sent directly to the sorting facility.
In the apparatus according to the invention, the line of hangers conveniently may be formed by hanging the hangers from their hooks along a suitable elongate support member, which preferably includes means to convey those hangers towards the separating facility. Hanging the hangers by their hooks is convenient for loading the hangers, because invariably all hangers have a hook, regardless of whether the other parts of the hanger vary, as may occur depending on the type of garment the hanger is used for hanging. It is not however, essential that the hangers be hung in this manner.
If the hangers are hung by their hooks over a support member, that member is preferably in the form of a conveyor, so that the hangers can progressively be loaded on to one end of the conveyor and be conveyed to the separating facility. While the conveyor can take any suitable form, such as a belt conveyor, the conveyor more preferably is of the screw or worm type, so that each hanger is separately located between adjacent threads of the conveyor. This has the effect of separating the hangers from each other in a regular manner and can itself cause decrossing between hangers, although it does not necessarily have that effect.
In the alternative to a screw or belt conveyor, the support member could be a rod or rail along which the hangers are supported and other means could be used to convey the supported hangers to the separating facility, such as by an air jet or even by manual pressure. However, an automated system is preferred. Still alternatively, the support member might be an inclined member so that the hangers tend to slide toward the lower end of the member, which can be located adjacent the separating facility, under their own weight. Clearly many other possibilities exist.
The separating facility equally can have a variety of different forms and in a preferred form, it includes a gate that is caused to become interposed between the forwardmost hanger in the line of hangers and the next adjacent hanger, so that the forwardmost hanger can be separated from the remaining hangers for conveyance to the sorting facility. The gate can also have a restraining effect on the remaining hangers so that the separated hanger is available for conveyance to the sorting facility unfettered by those hangers (assuming the hanger is not crossed with one of those hangers). Alternatively retaining means may be provided to retain the hangers behind the group which is released, so that only a certain sized group is released. The retaining means may include a gate that can be interposed into the hanger line, behind the group to be released, upon receiving the appropriate signal from the sensing means. The gate may be moveable from a retracted position spaced from the hangers, to the interposed position as described and that movement may for example, be vertical or horizontal movement.
In a preferred form, the separating facility includes two gates which are spaced apart in the direction of travel of the hangers, a distance sufficient to receive the supported section (generally a hook) of one hanger therebetween. The gates are controlled, so that the trailing gate (in the direction of travel of the hangers) opens to allow a single hanger to move forward into the space between the two gates, and then closes to separate or isolate that hanger from the remaining hangers and to prevent its further movement. The leading gate is then opened to release the separated hanger for conveyance to the sorting facility. The remaining hangers are retained behind the trailing gate until the separated hanger is released, at which time the leading gate is shut and the trailing gate is again opened to receive a further hanger therebetween. The gates can be controlled to open and shut continuously in an automated oscillating process so that a continuous feed of hangers to the sorting facility is provided. Also, the hangers can be banked up behind the separating facility and conveying means of the kind described earlier can be used to supply hangers to the separating facility.
A hanger that is released from the separating facility may be conveyed to the sorting facility in any suitable manner and again, conveying means of the kind described earlier can be used for that purpose. However, when a crossed hanger is released from the separating facility, as may occur if the body or a part of the hook of one hanger is crossed with another, the hanger may be retarded against conveyance to the sorting facility because of that crossing. In those circumstances, the sensing means senses the retardation of the hanger, and in one preferred arrangement, the sensing means detects the increased delay which occurs when a hanger is retarded, between release of the hanger and an arbitrary position in the conveyance of the hanger to the sorting facility. If the conveyance to the sorting facility is by way of a conveyor or conveyors, then the position at which the sensor detects the presence or absence of a hanger can be at some position along the path of one of the conveyors.
In the absence of the detection of a hanger at the nominated arbitrary position after the predetermined time, the sensing means activates the separating facility to release a group of hangers from the hanger line, which group preferably corresponds to a predetermined number of hangers that would be considered to normally include the or each of the hangers to which the first hanger is crossed. For example, the group may consist of the immediately adjacent three or four hangers behind the released hanger if it is considered unlikely that the released hanger could be crossed with a hanger or hangers further back in the hanger line. In most cases, the released hanger, if crossed, will be crossed with the immediately adjacent hanger and no hangers further behind, so releasing a group of three hangers is considered to take care of a substantial portion of any crossed hangers. However, even if the released hanger is crossed with a hanger say five behind, the sensor will cause a second group to be released that will include the relevant hanger after a second predetermined time delay.
The group of crossed hangers that is released can be conveyed to any suitable location for decrossing and in a preferred arrangement, the conveying means can be arranged to remove those hangers before they reach the sorting station. In one arrangement, the conveying means can include a bridging arrangement having a bridging element that bridges an opening between two sections of the conveying means, and when crossed hangers are encountered, the bridging element is removed or withdrawn from the opening to allow the hangers to fall through the opening for collection. The hangers which are removed may fall onto another conveyor, or into a container, or simply fall onto the floor. The movement of the bridging element can be by any suitable means and in one preferred arrangement, actuating means in the form of a hydraulic or pneumatic actuator is employed to retract the bridging element from the bridging the opening.
The separating apparatus may include an arrangement for sorting the hangers received from the separating facility and a second separating facility may be provided to control delivery of the hangers to the sorting arrangement. The second separating facility may be of the same or similar construction to the first separating facility already described, or an alternative construction may be provided. The second separating facility can be arranged to provide hangers at predetermined intervals to be sorted, or to be conveyed to the sorting facility. In one form, a screw or worm conveyor receives hangers from the second separating facility, in a manner that when the conveyor has rotated to a particular rotational position to receive a hanger, the hanger is released from the second separating facility.
Additional sensing means can be provided to the sensing means already described, to sense the presence or absence of hangers at various positions throughout the apparatus of the invention. Those sensing means can be used to regulate the delivery of hangers from the hanger line to maintain a constant flow of hangers through the apparatus. For example, if a group of crossed hangers is removed, then the sensors may speed up the delivery of hangers to compensate for the hangers removed.
The conveying means can take a variety of forms and can simply comprise inclined support railing for example, and/or a motor driven conveyor. Also, assistance may be provided to move the hangers in the conveying direction, such as by air jets or other suitable means.
According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for separating a jumbled collection of articles into a plurality of separate and discrete articles, including the steps of:
conveying a plurality of said articles in succession along a process path;
intermittently restraining and releasing passage of successive individual articles along the process path;
sensing whether or not the passage of a released article is entangled or interconnected with one or more other article; and
removing any entangled or interconnected articles from the process path.
In a preferred embodiment, therefore, the invention also provides a method which includes separating a hanger from one end of a line of hangers and releasing that hanger for conveyance to a hanger sorting facility while retaining the remaining hangers from release from the hanger line, sensing the movement of the released hanger and if that movement does not meet predetermined parameters, releasing a group of hangers from the hanger line immediately adjacent the released hanger and removing those hangers prior to the sorting facility.